title: The luminal connection: from animal development to lumopathies.
abstract: Interconnection of epithelial tubules is a crucial process during organogenesis. Organisms have evolved sets of molecular and cellular strategies to generate an interconnected tubular network during animal development. Spatiotemporal control of common cellular strategies includes dissolution of the basement membrane, apoptosis, rearrangements of cell adhesion junctions, and mesenchymal-like invasive cellular behaviors prior to tubular interconnection. Different model systems exhibit varying degrees of active invasive-like behaviors that precede tubular interconnection, which may reflect changes in cell polarity or differential adhesive cell states. Studies in this newly-emerging field of tubular interconnections will provide a greater understanding of pediatric diseases and cancer metastasis, as well as generate fundamentally new insights into lumen formation pathology, or lumopathies.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. rkao@post.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Kao
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis; D001485:Basement Membrane / Q000378:metabolism; D004848:Epithelium / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000473:pathology*; D048788:Growth and Development; D006801:Humans; D007365:Intercellular Junctions / Q000473:pathology*; D062211:Spatio-Temporal Analysis
keywords: invasive behavior; juxtaposition; kidney; luminal interconnection; lumopathies